Gueverra junks Napoles bid to turn state witness

Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra is not keen on personally drawing additional information from alleged mastermind Janet Lim Napoles about other officials who may have been involved in the pork barrel scam.

Guevarra said he would leave it up to the National Bureau of Investigate (NBI) to get any information from Napoles.

He would also leave it up to the Office of the Ombudsman whether to take in Napoles as state witness so it could prosecute other lawmakers and public officials who misused their Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), he added.

“If part of that evidence-gathering [by the NBI] would involve information voluntarily from Ms Napoles, then so be it,” Guevarra said in an interview on Thursday with CNN Philippines.

Last May 25, Guevarra discontinued Napoles’ “provisional coverage” under the Department of Justice’s Witness Protection Program as ordered by his predecessor, Vitaliano Aguirre II.

Guevarra on Thursday said there was no basis to keep Napoles under DOJ protection since she was under the jurisdiction of the Sandiganbayan.